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Sad day for humanity: Xenophobia triumphs!

With Britain voting to leave the EU, the US Supreme Court blocking President Obama's Immigration plan, and the likelihood of the US electing a president who prefers to lock its borders from the rest of the world, its a sad day for the free world and for those we believe that all persons should be treated equally, with dignity and respect, irrespective of their gender, race or place of origin.

By focusing on the "Me, Myself and I is what matters", instead of the "We as a people with collective responsibility to be each others keeper", we are distancing ourselves from what makes us human and embracing what divides us - the fear that the next person who doesn't look like us is the enemy.

Xenophobia is gradually becoming the new normal.

How can we get out of this?

We, as humans, tend to be complacent when the going is good. In the absence of external threats, we pick fights with our own. Communities usually come together when they feel threatened by an external force. The moment the external threat is no longer there, they start looking for enemies within. Villages start blaming and attacking other villages. Families start blaming and attacking other families. However, the moment an external threat appears, they will once again rally around each other to ward off the threat.

Today, instead of enjoying the comfort that civilization, technological advancement and development has brought to the human race, we're now bored of our progress and we're looking for some threat out there that will get us to react and get the much-needed adrenalin rush in our systems. We're either picking fights with our neighbors or blaming them for our shortcomings.

Today, xenophobia manifests itself in different forms - either violently through terrorism and hate crimes, or more civil through voting to stay away from others or, rather, to keep others away from us.

Where and when will this stop? What will bring us back to our senses and unite us? Do we need an alien invasion from outer space? Is that the common enemy that we need to bring us back together as humans? May be when some other life-form threatens our human existence, we will suddenly realize that we need each other to survive.

10
years ago, this day (7th April), I lost a very special woman in my
life. 10 years later, I still feel the urge to connect with her. Words cannot
describe the emptiness. There’s no substitute for a mother’s unconditional
love. Neneh, we miss you. May Allah continue to bless you, and may you continue
to rest in peace.

Our daughter Fatmata (Binta) Bah is the proud recipient of the Middle School Ambassador award for 2018 for "consistently demonstrating kindness and respect for all members of the community and beyond, for representing DAA in athletics and humanitarian work, for excellence in academics, and admirable work ethic". She is considered as "motivating, gracious, ambitious, inspiring, dedicated to learning, takes pride in her work, a quiet leader who leads by example, never wanting the spotlight on herself, with the ethos of helping others over herself, gentle, kind, thoughtful, with a caring spirit...". We thank God for his blessings.